Avalon Golf Course

Avalon Golf Course was built in 1926 by A.J. Small, who had bought the land after attempts to mine coal on it failed. He laid out the course, established Palmgrove Park and planted the Norfolk Island pines along the beachfront that still define Avalon Beach.

It is a nine-hole public course of par 31 over 1,673 yards, at 32 Old Barrenjoey Road, and it is the only course on the peninsula open from dawn to dusk.

What it asks of you

A par 31 over nine holes is a short course by any measure, and it is honest about that. What it offers is a round of golf that fits into the time a person actually has, on the northern beaches, without a booking.

Dawn to dusk access is the feature worth naming. A course that does not gate its tee sheet works differently from one that does: play is casual, the round is quick, and the course is used by locals the way a park is used.

The short holes still ask for approach play. On a par 31 every hole is a wedge or a short iron into a small target, and a player who cannot control distance scores no better than they would over 6,000 metres.

What players say about it

The course is public and heavily used by the local community. The points below summarise what recurs. These are other people’s opinions, not ours: we have not played the course, and we name and quote no one.

What comes up in its favor

• Access without booking, dawn to dusk, is the point cited most often.
• The northern beaches setting, with the pines Small planted, is frequently mentioned.
• It is repeatedly described as the best place on the peninsula to learn or to bring a child.
• The green fee is low.
• A round takes about ninety minutes, which reviewers treat as the whole point.

What comes up against

• A par 31 over nine holes will not satisfy a player who wants a full round.
• Conditioning is reported as variable, which is what heavy public use produces.
• Facilities are minimal.
• It gets crowded in school holidays.

Getting there and when to go

The course is at 32 Old Barrenjoey Road, Avalon Beach, about an hour north of central Sydney on the northern beaches.

The course plays all year, dawn to dusk. March to November gives the best of it. No booking is needed.

Green fees

Rates are set by the course. See the course’s own site.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location, encyclopaedic entries and local histories for the 1926 building by A.J. Small, the failed coal mining and the Norfolk Island pines, and public course records for par, length, the address and the dawn to dusk access. This course’s length is published in yards rather than metres by the sources we found, so we give it as published. The opinion section summarises public reviews read in September 2026; we report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we reproduce no quotations.

We have not played this course, and this page is no substitute for a round. The course has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say over its content. If you know it and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.